The S&S thoughts: Sincere and Silly. From the beaches of the Hawaiian shores to the Inland Empire of the Southern California landscape, to the high arches of St. Louis to the cultural history of Memphis, to where I call home now, this is my story, thoughts and hopes.

WoW TONO Thoughts

DEFINED ME ...

Some might say that I am off-the-wall, but I am right-on-the-shelf in the library under unique, Made-in-Hawaii, TONO.--July 2004

GOD'S WISDOM ...

I define true wisdom when God is magnified and glorified through His character. I am privileged to play a role with believers and stories where God and His Son is exalted! For God, be the praise and honor!--August 15, 2009

This turns out to be the #1 personal story of 2009, the pictures and the experience. It was a little more than a full week of FUN with my Sunshine. It might have been cloudy on certain days. But she was there to shine the light on the journey.

We thought we'd share the beauty of the Smoky Mountains. It was our third trip there. We circled the Mountains, and drove through part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
I will work on the story ... the TONO thoughts later in the week ... in between work!

January 2009

January 29, 2009

It’s amazing how I am dependent upon my
phone.Last Wednesday I had to think
quickly about what to do.Just before I
was to report to work, I noticed that my phone kept on rebooting itself around
and around.I couldn’t even call work to
let them know that I was going to be late.I couldn’t even let my wife know that I couldn’t text her because my
phone didn’t work.I was lost!I was a little disorientated.

I recovered and realized that I could e-mail
her on my laptop, instead of sending her a text message on my phone.Text message has been always my first choice
lately.I didn’t think about sending an
e-mail message.LOL

I was excused for a while from work to “fix”
my phone, which could be fixed without getting another refurbished one, but I
lost all the information that I put into it.I lost all the phone numbers on my Sprint Treo 755 phone and all the
other software information.I have a few
on my back up Palm T/X, but some are gone in cyber abyss.

I’m heading to a Sprint store now to get the
new software version installed.

January 20, 2009

I’ve been watching the inauguration coverage
with a short break of watching two episodes of Bones second season on
DVDs.It was the break of the luncheon
in Congress.

I’ve been watching on the television and
reading on the Internet how so many people cried when President Obama took the
oath of the office of the United States of America.I admit that I didn’t.I am proud that so many people have felt the
historical afternoon that passed.

This is a historic day because it’ll be the first
U.S. President that I’ll be blogging as they are sworn in.(Noticed I wrote U.S. President, not a
hyphenated one.)I am fortunate to be
home watching instead of at work managing people.

We now have a new sworn in President of the
United States.As I wrote yesterday, I
wish President Barack Obama well.He is
also my leader of this country.Let it
be known, however, that if my values to disagree with him I will speak out.

Let me just say that usually CNN.com has a
better variety of offering of following the political stories of the day.On their Web site there isn’t anything really
interesting, whereas, on the FoxNews.com Web site has many interactive
offering.(I’m not really into watching
anything on MSNBC … sorry if you’re a fan of that network.)The FoxNews.com site had four chat Web sites
from four different cities on four different subjects: Detroit, Michigan a discussion
about the automakers; New York, New York a discussion with first responders and
firefighters; Fayetteville, North Carolina, a discussion with military members
of our country and their family; Fresno, California, a discussion with people
in the middle of foreclosure battle.

Good job FoxNews.com.Personally bad for CNN.com because the news
network are supposed to be the leader on the Web between the two.

January 19, 2009

I fully understand that I may offend others
with my comments politically and my profession of my personal walk with
Jesus Christ.It would be sad that in
this nation we cannot express who we are, share them to whom we think is
important and have a dialogue about our differences—and hopefully,
similarities.If you don’t approve of
what I write about, please let me know what to write about.Ask a question that I can answer.What’s more important than the topic is
keeping in touch with you all.

Let me preface my comments to say that
starting tomorrow it will be a historic day, the first African-American President.It will also be a day that I wish all the
best for our now President-elect.He is
America’s President.But let’s agree to
disagree about certain policies that he ran on when he was campaigning.However, I am reading that at his inauguration
he’ll speak about responsibility and accountability.I hope that he’ll really mean it.I will give him the benefit of the doubt and reserve
judgment.

I am really disappointed in the fairness of
media and the Hollywood elite.For many
years I have argued that that there is a difference of press coverage between a
Republican politician versus a Democratic politician.I wonder if we had a first Hispanic or Asian
President what the storyline would be.As
much as I would like to believe that there are a common standard regardless of
party affiliation the politician is.This
is not the case.I recognize that now.There was a hard lesson I had to learn a
while ago.The difference that we make
in life may be very subtle and nuanced.I
have to find a way to deal with standing up as a role model of our values and
hopefully this earthly life will be worth living until the day we die.

Now, having a leader who may not have the
same values will not faze me.I know
that there is comfort in the big picture of everything that goes on in this
world.And there is a mystery and
anticipation of what happens after we leave planet earth.That will be a more interesting time to be
living, fellowshipping with the man who created the entire universe rather than
the evil –vs- good forces of the present.

January 16, 2009

I just finished watching the first four hours
of the Fox television network, “24,” started season 7 after a long, long
time.It is as compelling of a drama as
I remembered watching the last time that I did.There is no doubt that there’s nothing like a good television show like “24.”

January 15, 2009

This is a busy day with many different live
political news stories.There were many
confirmations for the new Obama administration.The most interesting was the appointment of William Holder to the U.S. Attorney
General.Minutes ago, on a television
split screen—and in real time—viewers can either choose to watch the outgoing
President of the United States George W. Bush saying goodbye to the U.S. State
Department or President-elect Barack Obama Secretary of State appointee Hilary
Clinton says goodbye to the U.S. Senate. I was watching these stores as they were unfolding.

Earlier, the United Nations report that the Israeli
government fired upon its humanitarian compound.The Israelis say that the Hamas or Hamas
supported fired first from civilian areas.As for things in the future, the U.S. Senate is voting to consider the
second half of the $700 billion approved into law. President elect Obama is proposing a $825
billion economic stimulus plan.

January 12, 2009

With the new year, there are some good
changes that has happened on the way that I'm getting some of my
information.Other than watching two
channels at once, I just received in my junk e-mail box the digital publication
of paper version of the National Restaurant News.It's a good thing because the paper version
usually comes about a week or more later than the published date.Don't know if that comes from Chicago or not.

From that publication, I noticed that Darden
Restaurants Inc.(mainly Olive Garden and Red Lobster) is one of one or two restaurant chains
showing positive same-store growth from year-to-year.But it was nothing spectacular.

This weekend on Saturday my wife and I went
to eat at an Olive Garden closest to our where we live.Let me just say that as for service of its
patrons, it’s nothing spectacular.It’s
either average or below.Usually, I’ve
experienced only two times in the few times a year that I eat at Red Lobster
that gave exceptional service in the last five years.Aurora ordered the Smoked
Mozzarella Fonduta as an appetizer which was spicy (never mentioned on the
menu) and Four Cheese Stuffed Mezzaluna with Shrimp, made with a sweet sauce
(never mentioned on the menu) and I ordered the Stuffed Chicken Marsala, which
was ok, and a bowl of minestrone soup.Of course, it came with their unlimited Garden Fresh Salad for both of
us.Overall the meal was ok.My wife only ate a few bites out of her
featured meal.The sad thing is that we
paid for a meal out, which the best dish out of it was the chain’s garden
salad.

Recent news reports show that people are
stressed financially and they are not going out to eat.That concerns me, especially since it’s the
industry that I work.I know that when
the sales are higher than projected, it makes my job so much easier.

So where are people eating?At home … with friends and family?At fast food places?Does anyone have answers?